The following is for those of you who are NOT anti-car, from
http://www.pro-free-move.info/anti-car.htm:
People have various motives for behaving in the ways they do. The anti-car movement is a coalition of all sorts of people:
Some are ascetics , people who believe that pleasure is sinful. They are horrified or disgusted by the fact that cars can be beautiful, luxurious, and pleasurable to own and to drive. (Asceticism has been around for a very long time, in many forms. Some people adopt it as a strategy for coping with feelings of guilt about the success and prosperity of Western society - a success and prosperity in which we all share to a greater or lesser degree.)
Some are authoritarians who cannot stomach the freedom to go where we please, when we please, that the car has bestowed on us. There are many such people in the police.
Some are bureaucrats who see anti-car policies as a way of expanding their own powers and prerogatives.
Some are eco-fundamentalists , worshippers of Green, an ancient deity with a new name. To be opposed to technology, and technological solutions, is part of their religion. They oppose the car because it is one of the most visible and beneficial aspects of a technological society. If they got their way and cars were banned, they would start working towards a ban on something else technological. We cannot appease eco-fundamentalists, any more than our forefathers could appease Fascists in the 1930s.
Some are elitists who want to stop other people driving cars so that there will be more room on the roads for their own cars. They hope that taxes and tolls will price all the riff-raff off the roads.
Some are political extremists whose plans came to nothing when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Trades Unions were emasculated. They restored purpose to their lives by joining the anti-car movement.
Some are feminists who oppose the car because they see it as a symbol of masculine aggression and dominance. (They ignore the inconvenient fact that lots of women like cars, and some men don't.)
Some are grudge-bearers - a member of their family, or a friend of theirs, may have died or been injured in a road accident. Their reaction is understandable, and we should treat them sympathetically. But they are as misguided as if, on the basis of a bad experience with one person from Ruritania, they bore a grudge against all Ruritanians. Grudge-bearers often bear a burden of self-imposed guilt in addition to their grudge. They would like to offload this burden onto road-users. But their attempt is doomed to failure - ordinary human beings have no power to shoulder the burden of someone else's guilt. Other grudge-bearers, sad to say, are simply out for revenge.
Some are megalomaniacs , people who have a passion for grandiose schemes or isms that they want to inflict on everyone. Such people often rise to the top of bureaucracies and other organisations where there is little or no democratic check on them. Some of them, for all that we live in a democracy, become prominent politicians.
Some are narrow-minded people who want others to conform to their views and their behaviour. ("If I don't have a car, or if I use my car only in some particular way that suits me, why should anyone else be different?")
Some are neo-Malthusians , people who have half-understood the writings of Thomas Malthus. They hold the over-simplified view that growth and progress cannot be sustained and so must lead society towards disaster. Time and time again, what happens in the real world has given the lie to neo-Malthusian ideas.
Some are tax-and-spend politicians who see the motorist as the goose that lays the golden egg. They don't want to ban cars altogether, because that would be like killing the goose. Instead, they want the goose to lay bigger golden eggs, and lay them more often.
Some are the public transport lobby with a different hat on. They may earn their living from buses, trams and trains, or they may simply be enthusiastic about them. Self-interest, or misguided loyalty, makes them anti-car.
Some are riders on a gravy-train. This category includes:
* academic researchers and consultants who publish anti-car reports and recommendations;
* people who make a living out of installing and maintaining so-called traffic-calming measures;
* people who make a living out of manufacturing, marketing, installing and maintaining road-signs and other street furniture;
* people who make a living out of manufacturing, marketing, installing, operating and maintaining surveillance equipment.
* people who make a living out of carbon-trading and carbon-offsetting schemes.
Some are slaves of fashion. They oppose freedom of movement because it is unfashionable, and support anti-car policies because they are fashionable. There are many such people in the media, and some in politics.
Most anti-car campaigners belong to more than one of these categories, and they may or may not realise what their true motives are. For instance, many eco-fundamentalists are first and foremost authoritarians or political extremists.
Some anti-car campaigners are prime movers in their campaign; others are what Lenin described as useful idiots - people whose motives may be good but whose minds are blinkered, and who are manipulated and exploited by the prime movers. With a cynicism equal to that of Lenin, the more unscrupulous prime movers eagerly recruit children to their cause, and indoctrinate them so that they will serve as "useful idiots". Some of these cynics pretend that they espouse anti-car policies purely on the grounds of child welfare.
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